The recent news reports on Pope Francis and his statements on confession and abortion in the upcoming Jubilee Year of Mercy, focused exclusively on the mother of the aborted child.

Most people see abortion as primarily a women’s issue. Pro-abortion apologists emphasize that abortion is a private, personal decision between a woman and her health care provider. Sometimes it seems that when the Church talks about abortion (repentance, confession, and healing) they are also focusing exclusively on the mother of the unborn child.

The Pope is coming to Philadelphia later this month for the close of the World Meeting of Families. This is the perfect time to invite the Church and our nation to view the issue of abortion through a much broader lens.

You might be wondering, how does an abortion that happened 1-5-10-20 years ago have any effect on marriage and family life today?

The Family Shockwaves:

– We know that when someone is intimately wounded by a traumatic experience of abuse or loss, the symptoms they experience after that event are not suffered in a vacuum. The anxiety, depression, behavioral and relationship issues, physical and psychological symptoms they experience, will naturally impact their families, marriages, school and work life.

– Abortion is often a closely guarded secret and a complicated grief; the isolation and shame associated with the abortion event do not allow a healthy expression and resolution of the loss as you normally experience with grief that can be publicly acknowledged.

– Secrets (like other hidden wounds such as abuse, addiction, affairs etc.) seriously impact intimacy, trust and communication between family members, and create an environment that prevents those hurting from seeking healing.

– In such an environment various addictions and destructive communication patterns can develop as ways of coping with and expressing painful feelings and the complicated grief that follows abortion loss. If these problems existed prior to the abortion…the abortion can intensify and exacerbate previous dysfunctional dynamics.

It’s a Family Affair

Family members and friends are often influential players in a woman’s decision to abort. Family members can share in the emotional conflict and complicated grief from their role in the child’s death. Like other public health concerns, without education and information, people fail to connect their painful personal, marriage and family symptoms to a previous abortion loss.

Yet the symptoms can be expressed in a variety of ways in a family:

– The insomnia and depression of the grandmother who could not prevent her daughter’s abortion and her grandchild’s death.

– The grandfather of an aborted child, that forced his daughter to abort and suffers from anxiety and depression.

– A mother self-medicating her anxiety and depression with alcohol after she felt pressured to abort because her husband was laid off from his job.

– A father with anger issues and affairs plaguing his marriage after they aborted a child with Down Syndrome.

– A sibling angry and disillusioned to learn that he is not his mother’s first born; he has a sister lost to abortion.

When parents are weakened emotionally, spiritually and relationally after abortion loss…children are inevitably affected. When we look across our nation and see the epidemic of single-parent families, failed marriages and over-medicated children in problem schools…we need to see abortion, at the very least, as a contributing factor.

The Good News

Just as proper diagnosis and treatment can restore the emotional, physical and spiritual health of the individual, attending an abortion recovery program can be an important factor in developing more intimate and satisfying marriage and family relationships.

Acknowledging abortion loss in a family and participating in an abortion recovery program, (especially when one or both spouses/partners have previous abortion loss), can provide an avenue for deep emotional and spiritual healing. Groups like Rachel’s Vineyard allow couples, fathers, grandparents, and when appropriate siblings of aborted children to attend their healing weekend retreats and Sunday Memorial Services that honor the unborn children. This healing journey helps individuals and couples who attend to re-establish a healthy spiritual and emotional foundation for their relationships damaged by abortion. Over time this will greatly bless their living children, and lead to healthier family dynamics. The abortion recovery ministry Lumina offers days of prayer and healing for siblings with abortion loss.

So as you can see, abortion is far from a private, personal decision. Given the 55 million abortions since 1973 in the U.S. alone, and the impact on marriage and family life, education and healing programs for abortion loss must be a priority for the Church in her mission of mercy and evangelization.

– Kevin Burke, MSS – Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life

[1]The Silent No More Awareness Campaign in January 2015 launched a yearlong event, the Shockwaves of Abortion. This initiative is designed to help the Churches and the general public to see the reality that the shockwaves of abortion extends far beyond the mother and her unborn child, who are indeed at the epicenterof the event. Each month looks at a different population group uniquely touched by abortion loss; fathers, grandparents, siblings, abortion providers, and minority populations targeted by the abortion industry with information and resources for awareness, education and healing. In September we focus on the family.

The comments by Pope Francis on abortion, the sacrament of reconciliation and the Jubilee year of Mercy have caused quite a stir. Most Catholics were not aware of the automatic excommunication penalty associated with abortion. Those who have already confessed the sin of abortion wondered if their sacramental experience was valid. At the close of this article, I will include a clear and reassuring response from Fr Frank Pavone that briefly addresses these concerns.

But I want to use this opportunity to broaden our discussion to include a very common and distressing phenomena associated with abortion and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I hope this may be helpful for Clergy ministering to those with abortion loss in this coming Jubilee Year of Mercy.

The Common Experience of Repeat Confession after Abortion

Dr Theresa Burke of Rachel’s Vineyard has noted for years in her international post abortion outreach, that it is common for women (without the benefit of a healing program) to confess their sin of abortion multiple times. There is a difficulty embracing the grace and forgiveness of the sacrament. Women and men may still struggle after confession with guilt, depression and anxiety. They may still be troubled by an inability to forgive themselves and trust that God really forgives them.

What’s going on here?

Abortion is a complicated experience of grief and loss. Along with the abortion of the child, the natural expression of the feelings of grief and mourning and any public expression of the loss of their child are also, in a sense, aborted. The normal social support and religious rituals that help us negotiate the experience of grief and loss are not present after abortion.

Women and men usually want to get as far away from the memories and feelings about their abortion event as soon as possible. This is reinforced by friends and family who tell them it was for the best and you just need to move on. Maybe they do “move on” and try to pick up and carry on with their lives. But they remain spiritually and emotionally wounded. At the heart of this wound is the reality that somewhere in the recesses of their heart and soul (even though often aggressively repressed and denied), there is a deep hunger to acknowledge, love and care for this child.

In addition, the abortion experience is often one of great conflict. There can be some intense feelings of anger, betrayal, bitterness and hatred of self and others for being put in the position of making this desperate decision.

Returning to the sacrament of reconciliation and the phenomena of repeat confession, a few points to consider:

Because of the complicated and intense feelings around the abortion event, there is a need for safe way to process those feelings in a supportive faith filled environment developed for those with abortion loss, such as a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat. Without this opportunity to empty the heart of this toxic pain, there is difficulty for the wounded person to embrace the forgiveness and grace of the sacrament. Penitents remain forgiven and reconciled with the Church and the Lord after confession…but they may still struggle with other post abortion symptoms and accepting this forgiveness. The healing process allows mothers and fathers, as Dr Burke says, to empty the heart of their abortion pain and make room for the grace of the sacrament.

Dr Burke also teaches that this repeat confession, without the experience of an abortion healing program, can be understood as a parent’s desperate attempt to remain connected to their unborn child. They are crying out for the need for a healing process where they can safely access their painful experience, and have a loving encounter with the child lost to abortion.

The Importance of the Healing Process

The Rachel’s Vineyard program features grief work in a group setting, with the loving support of the retreat team and other participants, and within that process an opportunity to receive the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation. The weekend program acts to cleanse the heart damaged by abortion. Now a mother or father is free to welcome their unborn child into their lives with love. They can develop a spiritual relationship with their child, and embrace the sure hope of being with them in eternity, God willing.

There is now no further need to continue to confess their sin of abortion.

May this Jubilee Year of Mercy call many wounded souls to embrace the mercy and forgiveness of Christ and His Church and to consider attending an abortion recovery program.

From Fr Frank Pavone:

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

The recent news about the Pope giving extra authority to priests to absolve the sin of abortion is good news, but is also causing some confusion. I will be commenting more about this in the weeks ahead, but initially it is important to understand a couple of things.

Some Catholics have wondered whether they were properly absolved in the past. Yes, you were. There is no need at all to worry about the past. Sins that have been confessed and absolved are absolved, as is any penalty that may have been incurred.

Keep in mind that many bishops had already given to their priests the full authorization to absolve both the sin and the penalty. What is being said today by the Pope is that all the priests who had not been given that authorization will now be given it. But if they didn’t have it before, then they would have known that and would have told the penitent that they had to come back at a later time.

The bottom line is simple: do not worry. This is all about more mercy and peace, not less.

— Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life

Pastoral Director, Rachel’s Vineyard and Silent No More Awareness Campaign

Viewing the latest video of the unfolding Planned Parenthood scandal, I reflected on our Shockwaves theme for this month; the healing of abortionists and abortion center employees and volunteers.

In this video Holly O’Donnell, an employee at StemExpress, shares how they would be advised to take the tissue, body parts and blood of aborted children obtained without the mother’s consent. Our first reaction is rightly horror at this desecration of unborn human life, and the illegal and barbaric practices of Planned Parenthood. But let’s also consider how exposure to this type of inhumanity affects employees like Holly O’Donnell.

I spent April 18th 2013 inside a Philadelphia Courtroom at the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Gosnell employee Kareena Cross shared how countless women with advanced pregnancies were given a drug to open the cervix so the unborn child would “precipitate”, (a medical term they used to describe the baby descending into the birth canal to its brutal death.)

Cross shared seeing one such baby “precipitated” right into a toilet bowl by her mother, alive and squirming in the waters of the bowl. In this incident the baby was taken out of the toilet with the mother present as the “medical assistant” punctured the baby’s neck with scissors to “snip” the spinal cord.

Everyone involved in this and other hellish procedures at this center, (live births and abortions with breathing moving babies were not uncommon here) experienced direct and intense psychological trauma…including the medical staff. The employees may be numb by repeated exposure to these barbaric practices. (You could see this post traumatic flat affect of Cross on the witness stand.) Gosnell’s employees were being repeatedly traumatized by their witnessing and participating in the “procedures” at that clinic. Without a healing program, these employees will experience the common post traumatic symptoms such as drug abuse, sexual and relational dysfunction, nightmares and insomnia, depression, anxiety…these are natural symptoms in response to being repeatedly exposed to such atrocities.

None of this relieves these employees of the moral and legal responsibility for their actions. But it is important to see that Gosnell used his considerable authority as medical expert and boss as he led his employees to engage in barbaric and traumatic actions. This not only destroyed babies, and injured their mothers but deeply wounded his employee’s own souls and psyches. Many of these women were African Americans from that same west Philadelphia neighborhood. It is likely that many of these employees also had abortion, sexual abuse and other trauma in their backgrounds making them vulnerable to engage in such horrific acts under Gosnell’s spell, and more likely to experience more intense symptoms.

I hope that the employees of this abortion center, and the jurors lawyers and other court personnel receive the counseling and support they need to process this traumatic material, and find healthy strategies to deal with any symptoms. Some of them no doubt have experienced their own abortions. In this case they would be experiencing traumatic triggering on a regular basis and have to process not only the traumatic material of the trial, but their own emotions and memories of a personal abortion.

How do the mothers exposed to this horror process the memories and feelings of participating with Gosnell in the desecration and destruction of their unborn? Without expert assistance, it is impossible. Surely more death and destruction, abuse and more abortions will follow in their tragic lives. The poor and minorities targeted by the abortion industry are by far the most vulnerable. (Keep in mind almost half of abortions are repeat procedures, a symptom of unresolved trauma.)

During the trial at breaks, sometimes right after a particularly gruesome picture or story was shared there would be some good natured joking and laughter…it was striking to me as a visitor. (I have not been subjected to this traumatic material on a daily basis as they have.) This is not because the court personnel and jurors were insensitive to the death and horror. They were merely trying to escape for a moment from the darkness they were immersed in on a daily basis. The judge, though very much in charge of his courtroom and the proceedings, seemed weary and eager for the proceedings to move to conclusion.

Kareena Cross testified that in one later term abortion of a living, breathing baby Gosnell joked “this one’s big enough to walk to the store.” Of all the gruesome details of the day that I heard, it is that casual and joking accommodation to the barbarity practiced by Gosnell that is most chilling.

The fruit of legal abortion is Gosnell. He is the natural progression of our accommodation as a society to the desecration of unborn human life that is abortion at any stage of a child’s development.

I was 16, and he was my first boyfriend. It was so easy to get caught up in the kissing and the touching and then quickly came the sex. He seemed to be so careful, using a condom every time. It was New Year’s Eve, and we were drinking at a friend’s house. We slipped away to a bedroom, and I noticed he didn’t put a condom on. I asked him about it. He assured me that everything will be okay. But…it wasn’t. Later, I was pregnant.We went to different schools. He went to a small town school, and I went to a big powerhouse school. My goals were already set for college out of my hometown. He was planning on going to a community college nearby. I was not letting anything stop me from going to college. I thought I was too smart to be pregnant at 16. It was embarrassing. I had to have an abortion. I thought it was my only option.

I told my boyfriend. He was not sure what to do. He was scared. He knew his parents would be so disappointed. Probably make him marry me. I certainly didn’t want to get married. No way! I loved him, but I didn’t want to end up in Small Town, USA. I wanted to leave Texas, I wanted to travel. So, I knew I had to end this pregnancy, even though this was against my religion. I was not letting anybody change my mind.

I did end up telling my oldest sister about my pregnancy. I wanted her to know what I was doing in case something went wrong; and I needed money. She told me she would not give me money, and I should tell my mom. I made her promise me not to tell my mom. Well, she broke that promise and told my mom. My mom didn’t yell or get mad. She was just very sad. Later, many, many years later, I find out she had an abortion, and she also was there for my older sister’s abortion. My mom did try to talk me out of it, but she knew I was not changing my mind.

As for the money…we needed $200 for the abortion. My boyfriend and I asked every friend we had for money. We asked for $5 or $10 until we got the money we needed. Little did they know to what they were contributing to…the death of our unborn child. Better they didn’t know.

The day we went to the clinic is a bit of a blur. I remember bits and pieces of it very clearly and other parts are fuzzy. The first part I remember is the big orange chairs in the waiting room. My boyfriend and I sat next to each other and my mom sat across from me. We sat in silence. My boyfriend was on the verge of tears the whole time. It was early in the morning. We were the only ones in the room it seemed. I’m not really sure if we were. They called my name. I paid the $200 at the window and a nurse took me to another waiting room.

This time it was a small room with chairs all around the walls. Almost every chair was occupied. I found a seat and looked around and everyone seemed to be as sad as me. It seemed like I was waiting for so long. I finally went into the procedure room. I undressed and put on a gown. I sat on the table until a nurse and doctor walked in. The doctor was talking to me, but he sounded like he was babbling. I couldn’t understand him. I felt numb. The nurse told me to lie down on the table.

She put my legs in the stirrups. The doctor was still talking. He turned on this big machine in the corner. He held up this white tube, and I felt it go inside me. It felt like suction. I turned my head to the right toward the huge machine. I felt like everything started to move in slow motion. I turned and saw two large glass jars attached to the side of this machine. I saw blood pouring into them. I saw the blood flowing through the clear tubes running from me to the jars. Then…the image I have burned into the deepest part of my soul…I saw white pieces of my baby’s body running through the tubes from my body into the jars. I turned my head back toward the ceiling. And that was when I began to have tears rolling out of my eyes. Tears for my baby. I knew right then and there that God would never forgive me. He would never love me again. I was a murderer. I had just killed my baby. I guess the nurse noticed. She grabbed my hand and said, “Everything will be okay.” She was so terribly wrong.

The aftermath of my abortion rocked me to the core. After I left the clinic, I just put the whole experience away and didn’t think about it. My life went on, but it was never the same. I was hurting inside, and I didn’t know why. I did not show anyone that I was hurting inside.

I did not go away to college. I stayed in my hometown with my boyfriend and went to a local community college. I still had desire to travel, so I joined the Air Force. My boyfriend and I stayed together for four more years, and got married. We have four kids. I had put the memory of that horrific day so far away in my memory; I did not realize that was the reason for my sadness, depression, and anxiety. I did eventually show my husband the pain I was suffering. But we couldn’t figure out why I was so depressed. At that time, I was an officer in the Air Force. I always had to have a “game face” at work and when I would get home I would just collapse in exhaustion and depression.

It finally became too much to handle. I was admitted into the mental health ward of a hospital for a week. It was during this time, a sweet Chaplin told me about Project Rachel. I went through the healing program. Me and some other ladies who have also had abortions met for weeks going through activities that helped us progress through the healing process. I named my baby, received grace and forgiveness form God, but what I needed most…the beginning of forgiving myself. It was this program that led me to healing and helped me find God again.

Though I was able to find personal healing, my marriage was still suffering from the after effects of our abortion. My husband has never been able to speak of our baby, whose name is Matthew. I held on to this anger because my husband did not acknowledge our baby. I felt angry because he did not seem to suffer the way I did over the death of our first child.

I heard about Rachel’s Vineyard when I attended Project Rachel. Since then, 11 years ago, I have wanted to attend a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat. I finally found one, and I planned on going alone. I told my husband I was planning on going, and to my surprise just out of the blue, he said “I’ll go with you.” Needless to say, I was shocked, and I jumped on the opportunity. I knew it was the Holy Spirit working on us. So, I signed us up, and made sure he did not back out.

My husband and I signed up to go on a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat in June 2015. It was a three hour drive for us to the retreat location. As we got closer to the site, my husband was getting very anxious about what was going to happen at the retreat. He wanted to know exactly what he was getting into. He said he was just going to support me. My prayer to God was that He would show Matthew to my husband.

The retreat was wonderful! It was more than I expected and especially valuable for my husband. On the very first night, our son spoke to my husband at 3 in the morning.My husband said the light around the door all of a sudden started to glow and get brighter and brighter as if it were daylight outside. Then he heard a little boy’s voice say “Its okay daddy” and he knew it was our son. He began to cry uncontrollably for hours. He knew our son forgave him for not acknowledging him for 27 years. My husband now is going through his healing and fully acknowledges our son, Matthew.

I cannot say how grateful we are to Rachel’s Vineyard and the whole team who put it together. It was a top notch event. My husband and I look forward to helping other men and women in our home town who suffer from post abortion trauma and are discerning helping the Rachel’s Vineyard here. We are moving slowly as my husband naturally needs time to continue his healing and allow that grace to settle into his life. But we are praying and are open to God’s will for our lives.

I was 16, and he was my first boyfriend. It was so easy to get caught up in the kissing and the touching and then quickly came the sex. He seemed to be so careful, using a condom every time. It was New Year’s Eve, and we were drinking at a friend’s house. We slipped away to a bedroom, and I noticed he didn’t put a condom on. I asked him about it. He assured me that everything will be okay. But…it wasn’t. Later, I was pregnant.

We went to different schools. He went to a small town school, and I went to a big powerhouse school. My goals were already set for college out of my hometown. He was planning on going to a community college nearby. I was not letting anything stop me from going to college. I thought I was too smart to be pregnant at 16. It was embarrassing. I had to have an abortion. I thought it was my only option.

I told my boyfriend. He was not sure what to do. He was scared. He knew his parents would be so disappointed. Probably make him marry me. I certainly didn’t want to get married. No way! I loved him, but I didn’t want to end up in Small Town, USA. I wanted to leave Texas, I wanted to travel. So, I knew I had to end this pregnancy, even though this was against my religion. I was not letting anybody change my mind.

I did end up telling my oldest sister about my pregnancy. I wanted her to know what I was doing in case something went wrong; and I needed money. She told me she would not give me money, and I should tell my mom. I made her promise me not to tell my mom. Well, she broke that promise and told my mom. My mom didn’t yell or get mad. She was just very sad. Later, many, many years later, I find out she had an abortion, and she also was there for my older sister’s abortion. My mom did try to talk me out of it, but she knew I was not changing my mind.

As for the money…we needed $200 for the abortion. My boyfriend and I asked every friend we had for money. We asked for $5 or $10 until we got the money we needed. Little did they know to what they were contributing to…the death of our unborn child. Better they didn’t know.

The day we went to the clinic is a bit of a blur. I remember bits and pieces of it very clearly and other parts are fuzzy. The first part I remember is the big orange chairs in the waiting room. My boyfriend and I sat next to each other and my mom sat across from me. We sat in silence. My boyfriend was on the verge of tears the whole time. It was early in the morning. We were the only ones in the room it seemed. I’m not really sure if we were. They called my name. I paid the $200 at the window and a nurse took me to another waiting room.

This time it was a small room with chairs all around the walls. Almost every chair was occupied. I found a seat and looked around and everyone seemed to be as sad as me. It seemed like I was waiting for so long. I finally went into the procedure room. I undressed and put on a gown. I sat on the table until a nurse and doctor walked in. The doctor was talking to me, but he sounded like he was babbling. I couldn’t understand him. I felt numb. The nurse told me to lie down on the table.

She put my legs in the stirrups. The doctor was still talking. He turned on this big machine in the corner. He held up this white tube, and I felt it go inside me. It felt like suction. I turned my head to the right toward the huge machine. I felt like everything started to move in slow motion. I turned and saw two large glass jars attached to the side of this machine. I saw blood pouring into them. I saw the blood flowing through the clear tubes running from me to the jars. Then…the image I have burned into the deepest part of my soul…I saw white pieces of my baby’s body running through the tubes from my body into the jars. I turned my head back toward the ceiling. And that was when I began to have tears rolling out of my eyes. Tears for my baby. I knew right then and there that God would never forgive me. He would never love me again. I was a murderer. I had just killed my baby. I guess the nurse noticed. She grabbed my hand and said, “Everything will be okay.” She was so terribly wrong.

The aftermath of my abortion rocked me to the core. After I left the clinic, I just put the whole experience away and didn’t think about it. My life went on, but it was never the same. I was hurting inside, and I didn’t know why. I did not show anyone that I was hurting inside.

I did not go away to college. I stayed in my hometown with my boyfriend and went to a local community college. I still had desire to travel, so I joined the Air Force. My boyfriend and I stayed together for four more years, and got married. We have four kids. I had put the memory of that horrific day so far away in my memory; I did not realize that was the reason for my sadness, depression, and anxiety. I did eventually show my husband the pain I was suffering. But we couldn’t figure out why I was so depressed. At that time, I was an officer in the Air Force. I always had to have a “game face” at work and when I would get home I would just collapse in exhaustion and depression.

It finally became too much to handle. I was admitted into the mental health ward of a hospital for a week. It was during this time, a sweet Chaplin told me about Project Rachel. I went through the healing program. Me and some other ladies who have also had abortions met for weeks going through activities that helped us progress through the healing process. I named my baby, received grace and forgiveness form God, but what I needed most…the beginning of forgiving myself. It was this program that led me to healing and helped me find God again.

Though I was able to find personal healing, my marriage was still suffering from the after effects of our abortion. My husband has never been able to speak of our baby, whose name is Matthew. I held on to this anger because my husband did not acknowledge our baby. I felt angry because he did not seem to suffer the way I did over the death of our first child.

I heard about Rachel’s Vineyard when I attended Project Rachel. Since then, 11 years ago, I have wanted to attend a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat. I finally found one, and I planned on going alone. I told my husband I was planning on going, and to my surprise just out of the blue, he said “I’ll go with you.” Needless to say, I was shocked, and I jumped on the opportunity. I knew it was the Holy Spirit working on us. So, I signed us up, and made sure he did not back out.

My husband and I signed up to go on a Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat in June 2015. It was a three hour drive for us to the retreat location. As we got closer to the site, my husband was getting very anxious about what was going to happen at the retreat. He wanted to know exactly what he was getting into. He said he was just going to support me. My prayer to God was that He would show Matthew to my husband.

The retreat was wonderful! It was more than I expected and especially valuable for my husband. On the very first night, our son spoke to my husband at 3 in the morning.My husband said the light around the door all of a sudden started to glow and get brighter and brighter as if it were daylight outside. Then he heard a little boy’s voice say “Its okay daddy” and he knew it was our son. He began to cry uncontrollably for hours. He knew our son forgave him for not acknowledging him for 27 years. My husband now is going through his healing and fully acknowledges our son, Matthew.

I cannot say how grateful we are to Rachel’s Vineyard and the whole team who put it together. It was a top notch event. My husband and I look forward to helping other men and women in our home town who suffer from post abortion trauma and are discerning helping the Rachel’s Vineyard here. We are moving slowly as my husband naturally needs time to continue his healing and allow that grace to settle into his life. But we are praying and are open to God’s will for our lives.

[Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin used the term “polyezniy idiot” or “useful idiot” to describe sympathizers in the West who blindly supported Communist leaders.]

There is a rapidly spreading firestorm surrounding the video of Dr Deborah Nucatola, the medical director of Planned Parenthood. The video shows her enjoying her salad and red wine as she describes the harvesting of aborted pre-born human organs and body parts for sale to bio-medical companies.

What is perhaps even more disturbing, are some of the responses from those that serve as apologist for Planned Parenthood.

As someone who is squeamish, it was extremely difficult for me to listen to Nucatola talk about extracting liver, heart, and other parts to be donated to medical research…But people who work in medicine for a living do, in fact, become inured to the gore in a way that can seem strange to those of us who aren’t regularly exposed to it. She also thought she was speaking to people in her profession who would be similarly accustomed to this sort of thing.

Marcotte pats the general public on the head (who are rightly horrified and sickened by the video) and assures us that you have to understand the context. Unless you are accustomed to the gore associated with an abortion procedure, you could easily misunderstand Dr Nucatola’s seemingly cavalier description of her trade.

It is one thing to be squeamish about graphic medical procedures. It is quite another to be so detached, as Dr Nucatola clearly is, from the reality of what this abortion doctor does for a living. Nucatola describes how in a mid and later term abortion, the unborn baby is decapitated and dismembered without anesthesia, at times with the intent of delivering the torso intact so you can harvest the organs.

This is not a matter of a natural discomfort with a graphic medical procedure. We are travelling here in much deeper and darker waters.

The Nazi Doctors: It is Demonic that They Were not Demonic

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton interviewed 28 former Nazi doctors, including five who worked in the death camps; and he also interviewed about 80 Auschwitz survivors, including many who worked as prisoner-doctors along with a German medical staff.

Dr Lifton in his study of Nazi doctors discovered that these men developed the capacity to divide the gruesome and disturbing aspects of their role as Nazi doctors, from their normal life as family members, husbands, wives and parents:

Dr Lifton: These doctors had not killed anybody until they got to Auschwitz, so they weren’t extraordinary killers to start with. They were ordinary people who in that way were socialized to evil… They did selections, they selected in the camps…In a sense, they ran the killing process… So when they were in Auschwitz they had an Auschwitz self, which was responsible for doing all of this…But they would go home to their families, from Poland to Germany, for weekends or for leaves and they would be ordinary fathers and husbands where they would function in a relatively ordinary way… (The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton)

Dr Lifton found that the Nazi doctors thought of the prisoners as pre-dead. Every prisoner in Auschwitz was marked to die, they reasoned. They had no control over that. To experiment on their prisoner/patients was to bring some good out of those who were already sentenced to death. To select the old and weak for the gas chambers was actually a form of compassion because it spared them the more painful experience of starvation.

Marcotte tells us it’s ok to extract the organs or body parts from unborn boys and girls because it’s what the parent wants…they are going to die anyway so might as well derive some benefit, right?

Marcotte: We also shouldn’t deny women who want to donate fetal or embryonic remains to science any more than we would deny someone who wants to be an organ donor, even though the latter is also quite gross to ponder.

Of course she fails to mention that organ donors volunteer to offer their body to science after natural death. You can’t decide to euthanize your elderly relative and say it’s Ok because you are donating their organs to science.

Abortion is gross, no doubt about it. It becomes grosser the later in a pregnancy it gets. But so is heart surgery. So is childbirth, for that matter. We don’t deny people who need help in those cases because the help is gross. Nor should we deny people that help when it comes to needing abortion.

Nazi doctors were seduced by the twisted philosophy of Hitler and other German racial purists. Dr Lifton revealed that these men felt called to be part of a great messianic medical mission – cleansing the body of the great German nation of the Jewish infection.

But this would require some messy and really gross medical work.

This soldiers who liberated Buchenwald discovered some pretty gross things:

The bodies of human beings were stacked like cords of wood…The stack was about five feet high, maybe a little more; I could see over the top. They extended down the hill, only a slight hill, for fifty to seventy-five feet. Human bodies neatly stacked, naked, ready for disposal. The arms and legs were neatly arranged, but an occasional limb dangled oddly. The bodies we could see were all face up. There was an aisle, then another stack, and another aisle, and more stacks. The Lord only knows how many there were. – Liberation of Buchenwald by Harry J. Herder, Jr.

It’s ok! It’s legal!

The Nazi doctors were doing nothing illegal in Nazi Germany. The systemic destruction of the Jewish people, the mentally disabled and other enemies of the state was the law of the land.

But although Nucatola’s comments raise questions about the acquisition of fetal tissue and the ethical issues surrounding its collection, the transfer of human fetal tissue is not illegal in the United States. Women undergoing abortions sometimes choose to donate fetal tissue for scientific research and abortion providers do not facilitate these donations without their explicit consent.

Useful idiots indeed.

The Shockwaves of Roe V Wade

Abortion became the law of the land in 1973. The Shockwaves of that seismic event continue to impact the unborn, and the parents, family, friends, and all those intimately connected to those procedures. But the publicly sanctioned practice of fetal killing has an even darker fruit; the corruption of the mind, heart and soul of those that become facilitators and apologists for this practice.

The video of Dr Nucatola reveals that just as with the Nazi doctors, these normal men and women learn to divorce the gruesome reality of their medical practice from their everyday life and activities. Dr Nucatorla enjoys a nice lunch while discussing ripping a living unborn human fetus apart (without anesthesia), safely removing the body parts, and harvesting the little boy or girl’s organs.

Please pray for Dr Nucatola. Pray that the firestorm around this video leads her to repentance and healing. Pray that she comes to see how abortion has so deeply twisted her as a physician and as a human being.

My friend “Anna” was pregnant. She was filled with joy and asked me to be the Godmother to her unborn child. Deeply honored, I said yes.

Anna had been pregnant once before, a pregnancy that was very difficult. She became violently ill and spent time in the hospital on several occasions. Her baby was born premature…and died in her arms the next day. Anna was devastated. She visited her baby’s grave frequently over the next few years. Tears would well up in her eyes every time she spoke about it.

The second pregnancy started out well, but Anna’s health started to decline shortly after she asked me to be the godmother. She had bouts of violent, almost constant morning sickness—something she was all too familiar with. Fear began to creep up – Anna felt this pregnancy was going to end the same way as the first. The morning sickness wouldn’t let up and her fear and anxiety rose each day at the same time her body was getting weaker. Emotionally, there was no way she could handle having another baby die in her arms. Anna began to feel that the only way to stop her violent sickness and to stop the baby from suffering was to end the pregnancy—-to have an abortion.

At the time (mid 1990’s) I was a bit ambivalent about it. I felt abortion was wrong and I couldn’t see myself having one—but I also saw the tremendous fear in my friend’s eyes and I didn’t want to see her go through the pain of having a baby die in her arms again. At the time we both probably felt it was just “tissue” as many people at that time thought.

I had been away from the church for 20+ years, so I wasn’t much help to her from a faith perspective. I basically thought, “she needs to do what she feels is best.” I didn’t try to talk her out of it. I felt it was something only she could decide.

Anna had the abortion on a Friday. She took the day off work and was back to work on Monday. She didn’t tell the father about it (I don’t quite remember – he may not have known she was pregnant). Anna didn’t talk about it after that.

A year or so after the abortion she began to suffer from depression and started having thoughts of suicide. A doctor gave her medication and that seemed to take the edge off. I don’t know if she ever connected that with the abortion experience. At the time I didn’t make the connection. Life just kind of went on for both of us. Sadly we have lost contact over the years.

Coming Home

The company I worked for closed the local manufacturing plant. The last few months of that year I spent traveling between Connecticut, Michigan and Indiana to prepare for the closure and transfer of tasks to other sites. I accumulated thousands of frequent flyer miles.

The following year I was reading a book called “Heaven on Earth” by Danny Seo. This book speaks of small things you can do to change the world. One of them was to donate frequent flyer miles to help provide transportation for children with medical needs. I called the number and donated the miles I had—36,000. A little while later I broke down in tears thinking I may have just saved the life of a child—-and all it took was one phone call.

That was a turning point in my life, the beginning of my journey back to my Catholic faith.

I didn’t see Anna very much during this time, but there were a couple of incidents that occurred that in hindsight were undeniably “God-incidents”, timed specifically to protect Anna or comfort her in a time of danger. Those incidents showed me that someone was watching over her, and guiding me to be there at the moment she needed someone.

My next job was with the Diocese of Bridgeport, CT in the Family Life/Respect Life Office. While there, I became involved in the Rachel’s Vineyard Ministry. Part of that ministry was to attend a retreat. Even though I am not post-abortive, I grieved the loss of my god-child lost to abortion, and felt guilty that I hadn’t done anything to save her life. It was very healing to me to go through that process.

The retreat center for the Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats was in a building next to the Catholic Center. With the help of some volunteers, I was able to paint and decorate the rooms of the retreat center, which had been very plain. I wanted to do something to help the women and men on the retreat feel welcomed and loved. Each room is named for a Saint and they are decorated appropriately (roses in Mary’s room, wood in St. Joseph’s room, etc.). That experience helped me gain a better knowledge of the Saints and also showed me how the Saints work in our lives. There were several instances where someone donated a decorative item or image of a Saint (after the rooms were painted) that matched the decor perfectly!

The Unborn Children as Intercessors

A priest friend of mine at that time said that he believes that the children lost to abortion become intercessors for their parent’s salvation. It makes perfect sense to me when you think of the “Communion of Saints” and Saint John Paul II words of consolation in Evangelium Vitae:

The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can with sure hope entrust your child.

The children of today are the modern version of the “Holy Innocents”. My God-child has been praying for me and her parents.

As I enter another transition period in my life I continue to try and discern God’s will. I was on a silent retreat last year and felt a calling in my heart to “help the children.” I have come to believe that this means I am to help the children lost to abortion intercede/help their parents come to know the love of Christ.

A couple of months ago I was in a church in southern Michigan that had an image of Divine Mercy in the adoration chapel. It was different than any other I had seen – Jesus looked like he had been crying. I felt the Lord was calling me to serve him in helping to “stop the tears”, and to reach out with his love and mercy and help stop the tears of those who have been hurt by abortion (and in turn help stop the tears of Jesus). I wasn’t clear how this would unfold, but I have faith that God will show me in His time.

Recently a friend gave me a handmade bar of soap that has the scent of baby powder. I found out a couple of days later that my god-child’s paternal grandfather died the day I was given the bar of soap. I had tears of joy, thinking my god-child was now in the arms of her grandfather. Perhaps that bar of soap was her way of letting me know things were good!

I haven’t seen or talked to Anna in a long time (I moved to a different state), and I have been unable to contact her. But I pray each day that she is ok and will find healing in her relationship with the Lord and her child.

In the meantime, I believe my calling to “help the children” and “stop the tears” begins with telling this story. I pray that all those affected by abortion will find healing through the love of Christ, Mary, His mother, and all the Angels and Saints.

For many years the pro-life community of Corpus Christi Texas and surrounding areas prayed in front of the last remaining abortion business left in the town. There were countless novenas and Masses offered along with visitations of a relic from the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Women and men spent many hours in silent prayer standing on the sidewalk at the busy intersection of Morgan Avenue and the Crosstown Freeway.

The clientele at this particular facility was predominantly Hispanic. I think I can safely say at least 75% of the young women and men who went through those doors were Spanish speaking clients. The doctor was Hispanic as well as many of the workers inside.

We noticed that many cars and trucks that drove into the single driveway had rosaries hanging from their rearview mirrors. The rosary is revered in the Spanish community even if you are not a practicing catholic or if you belong to a different denomination.

I have a dear friend who shared my devotion to the rosary. I felt called to somehow take Our Lady into that abortion facility. My friend was an avid rosary maker. She made them with real crystal beads and medals and beautiful crucifixes. Every rosary was totally unique. We had all the materials and final products blessed by our parish priest.

Our idea was that we would put together little gift bags with pretty ribbons of either blue or pink containing one handmade rosary and a little prayer card explaining how to pray the rosary.

We legally could not approach the cars as they pulled in but if the windows were down (in South Texas if you didn’t have air conditioning your windows were down) we could speak to the passengers. We asked them if they would like a free gift and show them a sample of the rosaries.

The first day we tried this we did not know what to expect. We had about 30 bags ready to give away.

My friend took one side of the driveway and I took the other. When the clients began to arrive we were amazed that they actually stopped. We smiled and asked if they would like one and many of the cars took more than one for family members.

What would happen next we could never have imagined. We could see them park and then get out of the car and take the little bag into the clinic. At that point we knew Our Lady was “inside”. The guy would sometimes come back out alone but he never had the little bag with him.

That day one of the couples came back out and got in their vehicle and pulled up to where we were standing and held up the rosary and yelled, “This rosary saved this baby!” Everyone around cheered and cried and rushed the car to hug the young couple who were in tears.

The manager of the facility walked out of the front doors and stared at us as if wondering what just happened.

We had done nothing illegal.

In the following weeks we gave away at least 30 rosary bags a week.

One afternoon one of the workers came out to where we stood and asked if she could have a rosary and one for her Mom. She cast her eyes down and said thank you and turned and walked back in.

Another afternoon when the abortionist arrived with his pretty young wife he stopped the car and she rolled down her window and asked if she could have a rosary. Needless to say there were many tears shed by the two of us that day.

I believe that Hispanics by nature are a very religious people. They are targeted in many low income neighborhoods with abortion businesses. Their large extended families are very powerful with their approval or disapproval of an unplanned pregnancy. We saw many mothers and even whole families drive up and drop off the young mother-to-be.

We did not offer them tracts of abortion statistics and pictures of the developing fetus.

We simply tried to give to them the love of the Mother of us all.

Who knows how many hearts were touched? I know ours were.

The facility closed last year. There are no more abortion businesses in the Corpus Christi area.

___________________

Pat Pulliam and her husband Tim currently live in Winter Park Colorado. Pat serves as President of the Board of Directors at The Pregnancy Resource Connection of Granby Co. and facilitates the abortion recovery study Forgiven and Set Free in conjunction with the Rachel’s Vineyard retreats in the Denver area. Pat serves as Regional Coordinator for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. Pat is the director of pro-life activities for the five small Catholic mission parishes in Grand County and gives her testimony and presentations of abortion recovery methods to the many various churches of other denominations in the area.

It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned… I set off three and a half years ago on a 30,000-mile journey for my new book, Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs, to figure out what is really driving the drug war… what I learned on the road is that almost everything we have been told about addiction is wrong…

Chasing the Scream is a compelling and highly readable book. It offers a unique historical perspective with fascinating accounts from those he encountered in his travel and research. The author skillfully weaves his story to develop a revolutionary theme – our understanding about drugs and addiction is fundamentally flawed.

“Human beings have an innate need to bond. Healthy, happy people bond with other humans. But if you can’t do that because you’re so traumatized by your childhood that you can’t trust people, you may well bond with a drug instead.

What I learned is that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety…The opposite of addiction is human connection [my emphasis.] And I think that has massive implications for the war on drugs. Our laws are built around the belief that drug addicts need to be punished to stop them. But if pain and trauma and isolation cause addiction, then inflicting more pain and trauma and isolation is not going to solve that addiction. It’s actually going to deepen it.”

Angie: A Love Song to Heroin?

Given the fantasy lifestyle of fame and the grind of touring and recording, life at the top for a rock star can be isolating. Celebrities can surround themselves with fellow wounded travelers and addicts. In his 2010 autobiography Life, Keith Richards wrote of how he composed the Rolling Stone’s masterpiece, Angie while recoverying from his heroin addiction:

“While I was in the [Vevey drug] clinic (in March-April 1972), Anita was down the road having our daughter, Angela. Once I came out of the usual trauma, I had a guitar with me and I wrote ‘Angie’ in an afternoon, sitting in bed, because I could finally move my fingers and put them in the right place again, and I didn’t feel like I had to s–t the bed or climb the walls or feel manic anymore.”

Richards has shared elsewhere that the song reflects the end of his relationship with heroin and can be seen as a lament at the loss of his deep-seated connection with the drug. Perhaps the poignant and beautiful melody is also a cry for more human and healthy connections in his life. Brings to mind Johann Hari’s comment that “the opposite of addiction is human connection.” Richard’s comments reveal that in the advanced stages of addiction ( though clearly dysfunctional) one can have an obsessive, even passionate love affair with an addictive substance

Abortion and Disconnection

My professional social work career has focused in the last 20 years on helping women and men to find spiritual and emotional recovery after an abortion loss. This experience left them suffering a variety of painful symptoms. One of the common symptoms used to cope with the complicated grief and the confusing feelings and memories of the abortion event, is the abuse of alcohol and drugs (and/or other addictive or compulsive behaviors.)

Johann Hari’s perspective on addiction touches on a foundational aspect of recovery for people with complicated mourning and emotional trauma after an abortion experience. While women and men have different ways of processing emotion and grief, the heart of healing is restoring the connection with the child that was rejected while in the womb. This pathway to healing often requires a treatment process such as the program developed by Dr Theresa Burke, Rachel’s Vineyard.

Rachel’s Vineyard is a unique and very effective healing process that enables the participants to safely access their complex and often toxic feelings about their role in the abortion and feeling powerless and exploited by the experience. Women and men journey through this painful material as they bond with other retreat participants and the leadership team. They find a safe, spiritually positive healing environment, loving support, and people who intimately understand their loss and stories. For the first time they are able to work through the pain, as they travel to what is at the heart of their healing journey – re discovering and re-claiming their connection as a mother or father to their unborn child.

Hari’s addiction perspective on the role of human connection touches on this core issue in abortion of disconnection found in the rupture in the physical and emotional connection with the unborn child in the womb, as well as the isolation and secrecy of the abortion event. This can help us better understand why many women and men would seek solace in drugs and alcohol, or addiction to pornography, work, and other high risk / self-destructive behaviors after an abortion procedure.

Does it not make perfect sense (drawing again from Johann Hari’s addiction insights) that until you find a process to re-connect in love with that aborted child (or children) you will struggle to move away from your relationship with those addictive behaviors and substances and other destructive Shockwaves that can flow from an abortion event? Regardless of your moral, spiritual and political perspective on abortion, unless you understand and accept this foundation healing element (which is naturally challenging for abortion supporters and apologists) you will be limited in helping people fully recover from a painful abortion experience.

In his book Hari points out the failure of the war on drugs and the philosophy of punishment and isolation in addiction treatment, especially of prisoners:

Ironically, the war on drugs actually increases all those larger drivers of addiction. For example, I went to a prison in Arizona — ‘Tent City’ — where inmates are detained in tiny stone isolation cages (‘The Hole’) for weeks and weeks on end to punish them for drug use. It is as close to a human recreation of the cages that guaranteed deadly addiction in rats as I can imagine. And when those prisoners get out, they will be unemployable because of their criminal record — guaranteeing they with be cut off even more. I watched this playing out in the human stories I met across the world…There is an alternative. You can build a system that is designed to help drug addicts to reconnect with the world — and so leave behind their addictions.

Johann Hari’s book offers examples of policies and programs that get better results. This is an important contribution to the addictions field and certainly helps us better understand the relationship of complicated mourning and isolation after abortion loss – and substance abuse. This doesn’t mean the author offers all the answers and solves every complicated problem associate with addiction. But it is well worth reading with an open heart and mind. This is a national and international issue that is vital to our national security and the health and the welfare of our communities, families and to so many wounded people struggling to recover from the challenges of addiction and violence.

Perhaps, putting aside the constrictive and suffocating polarization between liberals and conservatives on this issue, we can begin to seriously re-think the massive expense and destruction that have been the deadly fruit of the “war on drugs.”

It may be even more challenging for our nation to re-think our legalization of abortion in 1973 and look honestly at the real life consequences for many of our fellow citizens.

We recently celebrated another Mother’s Day. Before you know it, June will roll in and we will be reminded in countless commercials that we need to go out and get Dad a golf shirt or the latest and greatest tool for his workshop. Given the importance of mothers and fathers especially in our busy and ever changing society, we really need a whole month to focus on moms and dads.

The Shockwaves of Abortion Initiative presents important opportunity to focus on an issue that impact millions of women and men – abortion loss. This is a very appropriate time for our religious leaders to invite, with compassion and love, those mothers and fathers in their congregation who have participated in the death of their unborn children to discover the gift of repentance and healing in Christ.

To assist in this effort, the Shockwaves of Abortion website has some very helpful tools developed by Fr. Frank Pavone to assist your clergy and ministers to share a message of hope and healing…not just for one day but for the whole month:

Email or share this information on social media. Better yet, next time you talk with your pastor make him aware of this great resource for God’s people and follow that up with a message with links to these resources.